Jayne Savage – Page 2 – What Was Pebble Mill?

Pebble Mill at One OB

Photos by Tim Savage, no reproduction without permission.

The photos are of an outside broadcast for ‘Pebble Mill at One’ in the Cotswolds.

The first photo of Engineering Manager, John Endall and the horse was probably taken at David Nicholson’s racing yard at Condicote.

The other photos are of a tractor which was in the way of the scanner and took a long time to start and move!

It is Engineering Manager, John Endall sitting on the tractor, with VT editor, Steve Neilson on the far left of the tractor photos. The man in the light anorak could be rigger/driver from BBC Bristol called Ken Townsend.

Thanks to Jayne and Tim Savage, and Dave Bushell for providing the information.

Asian Unit Photo

The photo dates from the early 1980s, and is possibly from Mahendra Kaul’s leaving party. It includes from left to right: Yousuf Aziz, Christine Hardman, Mahendra Kaul, Ashok Rampal, Jayne Savage, Karen Hewson, Krishan Gould and Bridget Catherine Vaughan.

Asian Programme Unit – photos by Peter Poole

Lisa Sommerville

Karen Hewson

Lisa Sommerville and Karen Hewson. Photos by Peter Poole, no reproduction without permission.

Lisa and Karen were production assistants working in The Asian Unit. This department produced TV and radio programmes for the Asian community. I remember working on the radio programme which was in Urdu. The producer and presenter was Waseem. I had to rely on hand signals for playing the discs and tapes. I then did the edit under Waseem’s guidance. I always enjoyed working with Asian Unit. They were a great team and very nice people.

Peter Poole

Here are a couple of comments from the Facebook page:

Tariq Azis: I remember Lisa and Karen well..they would tolerate me and my sister when we were loitering around the office, I was probably around 10 at the time…they’re exactly as I remember them in these photos!

Jayne Savage: Karen now runs the very successful Westbury Park Guest House in Bristol.

Pebble Mill Pantomime – from Annie Gumbley

This photo shows the cast of a pantomime performed by members of the Pebble Mill staff. The pantomime was the Pied Piper which was a BBC Drama Club production and the show was put on at Cadburys.

The photo includes Pat Wareham, Ann Gumbley, Susie ?, Wendy Nelson, Annie ?, Polly Brain, Elaine Hercombe, Jane Hyde, and Jayne Savage.

Thanks to Annie for making the photo available.

Jayne Savage (on the right with the long hair), remembers the club well:

“Drama Club productions were a regular thing – I would say annually during the early/mid 70s. The first one I can remember was a review which included tiller girls and a very energetic can can which was performed at the Crescent Theatre. Rather worryingly I don’t remember Pied Piper! The production that stands out for me was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat which ran for several nights at Cadbury’s and then had 2 performances at Malvern. The final one I think was How to Succeed in Business… at the Old Rep. Rita Cashmore who choreographed was brilliant at organising a very ‘mixed’ collection of dancers. Anybody who wanted to take part could, and it was a lot of fun.”

Gail Herbert was also a keen Drama Club member:

“I used to be involved with some of these epics. I remember being the back end of the cow in Godspell – Peter Hercombe was at the front! We trod the boards at Malvern I seem to remember. Real laugh.”

Asian Programmes Unit – ‘New Life’

These photos are probably by Willoughby Gullachsen, and have been given by Maggie Humphries from Film Unit. No reproduction of the photos without permission.

BBC Pebble Mill was home of the BBC’s multicultural programmes.

The photos show a location shoot for the Asian magazine strand: ‘New Life’. They date from the 1980s, when the inserts were still shot on film. The sound recordist shown is Alex Christison, and cameraman Steve Saunderson, the camera assistant Ian Churchill, and the PA Jayne Savage. Standing on the stairs in the tie is the director/producer, Waseem Mahmood. The programme was a documentary on the first Asian model, Safira. Nigel Pardoe-Matthews was the film editor.

The documentary was an occasional 30min special as part of the New Life strand. Waseem made three in the six years that he was at Pebble Mill: “Safira” about the model, a film about Asian Ballerina Nicola Katrak and a special where Marion Foster interviewed Ravi Shankar… the latter got a prime time slot on BBC2.

‘New Life’ from 1981 was called ‘Asian Magazine ‘- this must have been when Ashok Rampal took over as Executive Producer.

Please add a comment if you can identify other people in the stills, or can add more information.

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